Talk:Portrait of Saint Bartley Harris

Proposed Images and Sources:

I plan to include four images (all taken by me). I have two images of Weeden’s portrait of Bartley Harris, one image of Maria Howard Weeden’s historic Huntsville home, and another image of a plaque on the site of Reverend Bartley Harris’ original church. In terms of sources, I have two peer-reviewed sources: a book review of a more recent compilation of Maria Howard Weeden’s writings, and a book published by the University of Alabama Press on Alabama art/artists that has an entry on Weeden. I am also going to cite several newspaper articles referencing her work, two biographies on Weeden, a history of St. Bartley Primitive Baptist Church, and an article on Bartley Harris from a Huntsville news website.

Proposed Article Structure:

I. Portrait of Reverend Bartley Harris- This introductory section will include a brief identification of Revered Bartley Harris and will also introduce Maria Howard Weeden as an artist from Huntsville, Alabama.

II. Subject and Historical Context- This section will provide some background on Bartley Harris, and also some general historical context for antebellum Huntsville that is important in understanding the impetus for Weeden to paint and who her subjects were. This section will also discuss the unconventional role that Weeden and her artistic representations of African Americans played in this antebellum environment.

III. Style and Medium- The discussion of style and medium will take into consideration Weeden’s artistic training and how this informed her interest in portraiture. It will also provide details about her use of extremely fine brushes that allowed her to achieve the photographic quality for which her small portraits are well-known and that is particularly evident in her portrait of Bartley Harris.

IV. Exhibition and Reception- This section will highlight the extent to which the audience for Weeden’s portrait of Reverend Bartley Harris differed from the audience of the majority of her other portraits, as it was one of her paintings displayed in Berlin, Germany.